Posts tagged as:

politics

Documenta 14: Learning From Athens, Learning From Crisis

by Corinna Kirsch and Anastasia Tuazon on June 9, 2017
Thumbnail image for Documenta 14: Learning From Athens, Learning From Crisis

You don’t need to go to Kassel, Germany to know that the world seems on shaky ground. But this year’s documenta exhibition, “Learning From Athens,” nails home that idea, nonetheless. That’s quite intentional, given that documenta 14 artistic director Adam Szymczyk, along with a team of more than a dozen curators, chose to stake out a markedly “political” point of view. Though the word “political” can refer to pretty much anything or nothing when it comes to curation, Szymczyk and team have carved out a specific focus: the local is the global. And right now, documenta envisions that the world is in need of being rebuilt entirely—from the ground up.

Read the full article →

Here and Elsewhere: A Portrait of the Global Art Economy

by Corinna Kirsch on September 8, 2014
Thumbnail image for Here and Elsewhere: A Portrait of the Global Art Economy

It’s unfortunate, then, that the lessons I got out of Here and Elsewhere, the New Museum’s current exhibition of art from the Arab World, weren’t the least bit challenging. We’re told contemporary art should look like other contemporary art and exhibitions, and that if that art is political, it should reference past events. That’s not much of a lesson plan.

Read the full article →

Emails Reveal Guggenheim Bullies Journalist Suspected of Ties With Gulf Labor

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on August 7, 2014
Thumbnail image for Emails Reveal Guggenheim Bullies Journalist Suspected of Ties With Gulf Labor

We have now received leaked email correspondence between the Guggenheim and Crabapple while she was working on “Slaves of Happiness Island,” a firsthand report of slave-like worker conditions on Saadiyat Island.

Read the full article →

“The Politics of Art”? That Died Out in the 1970s

by Corinna Kirsch on November 21, 2012
Thumbnail image for “The Politics of Art”? That Died Out in the 1970s

In the 1960s and early 1970s, art and politics were peas in a pod. For die-hard critics like Barbara Rose, who lived through these decades in New York, that was the time to be alive. Art was good then, and now it sucks. Well, that’s how her argument goes, which which she makes in the pages of this month’s Brooklyn Rail. We disagree.

Read the full article →

Sexy Boys and a Scandal at Leo Koenig, Inc.

by Corinna Kirsch on August 24, 2012
Thumbnail image for Sexy Boys and a Scandal at Leo Koenig, Inc.

In video and performance artist Julika Rudelius’s exhibition Rituals of Capitalism, there are videos and photographs of young men—flamboyant Chinese youth and emotionless Ivy League students—and then, as you walk through the gallery, there’s two empty pedestals. These pedestals had previously shown two of Rudelius’s works, “unidentified furs” from China, but those works were removed. According to a typewritten note from the gallery, they violated a U.S. law which forbids importing cat and dog furs. It seems there are some things that just don’t translate from east to west.

Read the full article →

House GOP attempt to zero out NEA, NEH fails | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com

by Paddy Johnson on August 10, 2011

House GOP attempt to zero out NEA, NEH fails | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com – That the vote to entirely eliminate the NEA failed is encouraging for numbers against bill — 284-126 — but that this is even being voted on does not make me happy.

Read the full article →

[IMG MGMT] L.M. vs. Leni R.

by Lorna Mills on September 22, 2010
Thumbnail image for [IMG MGMT] L.M. vs. Leni R.

[Editor’s Note: IMG MGMT is a is an annual image-based artist essay series. Today’s invited artist, Lorna Mills has actively exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions since the early 1990’s. Her practice has included obsessive Ilfochrome printing, obsessive painting, obsessive super 8 film,  obsessive digital video animations incorporated into restrained installation work and currently […]

Read the full article →

[IMG MGMT] Molla Nasreddin: The Magazine That Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

by Slavs and Tatars on September 15, 2010
Thumbnail image for [IMG MGMT] Molla Nasreddin: The Magazine That Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

We first came across the Azeri periodical Molla Nasreddin on a winter day in a second-hand bookstore near Maiden Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was bibliophilia at first sight. Its size and weight, not to mention the print quality and bright colors, stood out suspiciously amongst the meeker and dusty variations of Soviet-style works in old man Elman's place. We stared at Molla Nasreddin and it, like an improbable beauty, winked back.

Read the full article →